Border Crisis Averted?
Associated Press Reports Biden Administration Planning "Mass Flights" to Haiti
Late yesterday came word that an end to Del Rio’s crisis may be in sight.
This is great news, if it actually happens. But who knows if it really will. The way everything is couched in vague terms leaves one plenty of room to doubt.
An official said. Plans not finalized. Officials are considering.
This is only a trial balloon. The simple truth is, Joe Biden could say it is so in a news conference, the planes could be in the air to Haiti, and we could learn there’s been a change of plans, they’re heading for Pennsylvania instead. Or Florida. Or anywhere in the U.S.
Just look at the last 48 hours. The bridge is closed. No it’s not. Texas National Guard and DPS are going to be assisting Customs and Border Protection. No they’re not. Changed our minds!
It’s like some arbitrary 12 year old is making decisions.
Here’s something not a lot of people have been talking about: The Department of Homeland Security maintains a multi-layered approach to border control. There are the measures we see— checkpoints, roving patrols through the desert, etc. And there are the measures we do not. Agents stationed throughout Mexico and Central America, monitoring and watching for potential terrorists and other bad actors, trying to hire known smugglers and Coyotes.
Here’s a great piece by a writer named Todd Bensman, that goes into great depth about it. Bensman isn’t just some punk. He’s a former reporter for the Dallas Morning News that has since pivoted and gone to work for the Department of Public Safety and other organizations, and become something of a Counterterrorism expert. But honestly, none of that background really matters. The words speak for themselves. He is obviously someone that is deeply steeped in these issues. A subject matter expert.
I point this out, in order to support this conclusion: Portions of the federal government had to have known this crisis was coming for quite some time, and have done nothing to prepare for it. They basically have tried to hang their own people in Customs and Border Protection in Del Rio out to dry. To say nothing of the normal citizenry and taxpayers of Del Rio, Texas. There is no immediately fathomable reason for the schizophrenic flip flopping that has so far characterized this crisis.
These photos appear to show school buses from the local school district being pressed into service to help move people out from under the bridge.
There’s no word yet on where they’re going. They could be trucking them onto Laughlin for the first flights out. They could be taking them to an NGO’s facility in Del Rio. They could be taking them to the local Border Patrol station for further processing. Online, one finds people objecting to the use of these school buses, but realistically, not using them in some capacity is just not an option. In an emergency situation, which this qualifies as, local school buses stand as one of the most important available tools to any municipality and they can and will be used. They should be used. Not using them only compounds the difficulty of the situation.
Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens put up an occasionally profanity-laced video statement on his Facebook page, blasting the administration for this situation. It must be noted that the County Judge is a Democrat.
I’ve never actually met the man. But one detects a sort of exhausted contempt with the powers that be over this.
One thing that leapt out at me yesterday was the move by Texas Department of Public Safety Officials, taking FOX News Reporter Bill Melugin up in a helicopter to shoot video of the seething masses. That, after the FAA issued a temporary flight restricton, grounding Melugin’s use of a drone to document the absolute state of pending anarchy under the bridge. Many cried foul. Some said it was routine. DPS basically seems to have said “Hold my beer.” And that’s not the first time DPS has appeared to poke their finger in the eye of federal authorities.
Go back to the days of the “Republic of Texas” standoff in Davis County. 3 people attacked a ranch house, taking a married couple there hostage, calling them “prisoners of war,” laying claim to a Fort Davis mountain resort.
It was 1997. The leader of the group was a man named Rick McLaren, who had been filing bogus liens on property in the area for years, claiming it belonged to the Republic of Texas, and had been improperly seized by illegally elected figures. That in effect, the annexation of Texas in 1865 was unlawful, and he was the true and rightful leader of the Republic. Kooky stuff, a tactic he’d apparently picked up from a Militia group in Montana some years before. Some of this sort of behavior still exists all around the country. The people echoing it are called “sovereign citizens.”
The Standoff that ensued between McLaren and Texas Rangers bore eerie similarities to the Branch Davidian siege in Waco and the Ruby Ridge debacle in Idaho— law enforcement actions that even today bear many troubling connotations for some Americans who feel Federal Authorities handled themselves poorly, contributing to the deaths of people who shouldn’t have been killed.
At the time, the Federal Government offered assistance. And, story goes, that in so many words, DPS and the Rangers said “Nope. We got this.” They surrounded the ranch and waited. The siege ended without a bang, but a whimper. No one died.
As it happens, the Ranger Captain in charge of the enforcement action has been quoted as saying that it was then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno who ordered federal agents out— that the feds were themselves concerned about what might happen after Waco and Ruby Ridge.
So, in truth, it is very likely not actually the case that DPS was spurning Federal assistance, but the myth of that kind of independent action remains strong, fueling this apocryphal accounting of Ranger and Texan self-reliance in the resolution of the standoff.
In the days to come, there will be many frustrated people wanting to talk about a more independent Texas. A Texas willing to shut down the border on its own authority.
After what’s happened in Del Rio, after what’s been happening for months all up and down the Rio Grande, one finds it difficult to blame them or even argue against it.
Oh, by the way? After DPS took Melugin up in their helicopter, came word that the FAA’s temporary flight restriction has been lifted. Drones over the bridge are now kosher again. Weird!
Thanks for this Matt. Keep up the good work man! It's great to have a trusted news source on the border that I know isn't just making crap up or parroting what other sources are saying.
Edited after publication to remove an errant use of "a."